A friend of mine has just been telling me about this: one reason why it wasn't in French is that the book on which it was based was written in English by somebody who lives in Barnsley, which is in Yorkshire, England.  Yorkshire, as you probably know, is the best-represented region of the UK on the Mudcat, and is best candidate for a regional parliament when England federalises (probably not in my lifetime, but we can hope).  Apparantly, the author based the Juliette Binoche character on... Juliette Binoche.

The best chocolate in the UK, incidentally, is made just over the border in Derbyshire:  Thorntons

Malcolm